Solidarity against the sellout of new workers!

No to wage cuts and 30-hour flex work schedules!

Vote NO on the APWU contract!

(Detroit Workers' Voice #99, April 5, 2011)

The APWU
leadership has agreed to a disastrous tentative contract with postal
management. If passed, future career postal workers’
standard of living would be severely slashed, 20% and more of the
clerk workforce would be abused temporary workers, and
present career workers would be robbed by rising health
care premiums and by being forced into flex positions that Postmaster
Donahue envisions as 30 hours a week. Don’t let management destroy
our livelihood and pit present and future workers against each other!
Vote this contract down!

No layoff clause a misleading
“victory”

In order to sell this disaster, the
APWU national leadership boasts that they retained the “no layoff”
clause for present employees. Management is just going to rob us
while keeping us! Though good, the no-layoff clause won’t protect
anyone hired in the future. And this clause has not stopped
management from eliminating 170,000 jobs in recent years. Nothing in
this contract will stop the job loss by attrition, automation and
increasing workloads that has led to massive excessing and overwork
and has turned workers’ lives upside down. APWU president Cliff
Guffey brags that his contract will reverse some outsourcing and
bring work back in, but this work may largely go to the new temporary
workers (called PSE’s). And tens of thousands of clerk, carrier and
mailhandler jobs will be lost if 5-day operations goes into effect,
an issue which Guffey, while touting the contract, has declared he
will not fight.

Limits on excessing a fraud

But what about the new
contract’s claim to limit excessing to within 50 miles of the
workplace? The contract contains a loophole big enough for a U-Haul
moving van to drive through. Under the agreement, management could
say it has no positions available within 50 miles. Then the
agreement permits excessing past 50 miles. But management always
claims to have no positions in the area; it’s their constant
chorus! So this limitation is a fraud.

Besides, despite the alleged current
national freeze on excessing there’s still a lot of outrageous
excessing, and management plans a huge number of closings and
consolidations nationwide. In Detroit, excessing of window clerks and
others continues as bid assignments go unfilled. But Guffey advises
us to trust management not to take advantage of the excessing
loophole! Really, Cliff! That’s right up there with the tooth
fairy!

Wages and COLA for current workers -– eaten away by inflation

Guffey considers the wage
settlement fair. Let’s see. Over four and a half years, wages
increase 3.5%, but the first raise of 1% doesn’t arrive for a year
and a half, in Nov. 2012. Inflation will outstrip that puny 1%
“gain”, and maybe by a lot considering rising gas, food, and
health care prices. The first COLA raise won’t happen until Jan.
2013, or three years since the last COLA increase. There are some
other tiny wage hikes and some COLA payments backloaded to the end of
the contract. But they won’t make up for all the losses before
that.

Soaring health insurance payments

Further, health insurance
payment increases will insure that our wages are sucked dry. This
contract would reduce the share management pays for workers’ health
insurance by 1% a year, raising the employee contribution from 19 to
24%. In itself that would increase many workers’ health insurance
costs several hundred dollars a year. But that doesn’t count the
rising costs of the health insurance itself. Based on recent trends,
premiums are likely to rise at least 10% a year. If today the total
premium cost was $400 per pay period, it will rise over 60%, to $644,
over five years. Today the worker pays 19% of that $400 each
paycheck, or $76. Five years down the road the workers would pay 24%
of $644, or $155 each payday. So a postal worker’s health insurance
costs could easily double over life of the contract. In this
example, health care payments taken from wages would cost workers an
extra $2,054 a year five years from now. So what sellout Guffey calls
a “slight” increase of just “several” dollars a year actually
is a big rip-off of wages.

Wage cuts for future career workers

A particularly horrible
feature
of the tentative agreement is it turns new career hires into
second-class career employees. Their starting wages will be
considerably lower than present career employees, cut by about $8,000
a year at Level 3 to about $5,000 a year at Level 5 or 6. New career
workers would never reach the current top pay levels. These wage
losses will also reduce pension benefits which depend on wage levels.
New career employees would not be covered by the no-layoff clause,
which applies only to those hired by November 2010. So the APWU
leadership is accepting that there should be two unequal types of
career employees. And in time, as the old workforce is replaced, the
whole career workforce will suffer this much lower compensation. This
atrocity is so bad that even former APWU president Bill Burrus, who
produced many rotten contracts himself, is forced to admit this
contract should be rejected.

Doubling the amount of abused
temporary workers

The contract would create a
new
form of third-tier temporary workers similar to present casuals.
Essentially the use of what are presently called casuals could double
to 20% and more of the workforce in mail processing and 10% in
retail, maintenance and motor vehicles. These temporary workers would
be renamed Postal Support Employees (PSEs). PSEs would be allowed to
exceed 20%, as the contract provides that they will do whatever
out-sourced work is brought back and that these PSEs would not be
counted towards the 20% limit.

The PSEs would make very low wages,
between $12 to
$14/hr. depending of the job. They, like casuals now, would be hired
for 360-day tours, with no work guaranteed beyond two hours on a
scheduled day. They would be subject to layoff at any time and would
be dependent on the “good will” of management to re-hire them
each year. They could pay union dues, but could not grieve short
hours or management’s failure to rehire them. Postmaster Donahue
drools over using this growing army of low-tier slaves, boasting
about how whatever restrictions exist on how they are scheduled are
ripped away. Donahue states: "No more restrictions around
window, no restrictions around schemes, no restrictions around the
time of day." And he adds they could work in several jobs
and facilities with different hours all in the same week.

But the union claims they have made
great improvements
compared to previous casuals. Let’s see. They say that the PSEs
would get health benefits. But they only qualify if they’re rehired
for a second year, giving management an incentive not to rehire them
but just bring in a new bunch. They would get some annual leave, but
limited to 2 1/2 weeks maximum and reduced if their hours are cut.
They can contribute to TSP retirement, but get no matching funds from
management and no postal pension. PSE wages would be so low they
couldn’t put much into the TSP. PSEs could join the union, which is
nice, except for the fact that the union is allowing them to be so
abused.

These often-empty benefits can’t
hide the fact that
overall, the tentative contract allows a huge increase in the number
of employees who make low wages, have almost no benefits, and endure
horrible schedules and no job stability.

“Flexible schedules”: goodbye
8-hour days, hello 30-hour weeks

Working over eight hours a day
strains
a workers health, and should be voluntary and higher-paid. The new
contract undermines this. By introducing “non-traditional”
flexible schedules, the tentative contract means a number of clerks
(50% in major facilities) who would normally have a basic schedule of
five days at 8-hours a day would now be forced to work 10, 11, or 12
hours with no overtime pay based merely on working over 8 hours.
Overtime would only kick in if the set hours for the weekly schedule
were exceeded.

The contract says present full-time
workers could be forced into these new “flexible schedule jobs”
(Non-Traditional Full-Times, or NTFTs), only if they’re not less
than 40 hours a week. But actually, present full-time workers
could also be forced to accept sub-40 hour weeks in order to escape
continuing excessing. Postmaster Donahue outlined his plans for
us: "The flexible regular clerk came up, and the way it works is
this. If you can be a 3 to 11 clerk working 5 days a week, and your
new assignment gives you an opportunity to work in maybe one office
for two days, another office for three days. As a clerk you may only
be working 32 or 33 hours a week as part of your schedule." You
want to talk about wage cuts? Going from a 40-hour week to a 30-hour
week is a 25% wage cut!!

New career and PSE employees
could be assigned
to any NTFT position, even if it’s less than 40 hours a week. They
could also be forced into jobs with split shifts. Management can
change any position into an NTFT position as soon as the job becomes
open. And controversies over the new flexible schedules would not be
subject to the local grievance procedure.

Vote no! Get organized for struggle!

This contract is a disaster
for
new and present employees. Having a major section of the workforce
extremely underpaid and doing the same work as current career
employees would fuel disunity among postal workers, making it harder
to resist management attacks. New workers should have the same level
of compensation as career present workers now have. A vote against
the contract would reinforce solidarity among postal workers. Under
the contract, all workers would suffer financially and flex schedules
would destroy more and more workers’ livelihoods. Workers across
the country are starting to see through this sellout contract; and
for example, the Northeast Massachusetts District local has strongly
called for a No vote. Vote "no" to protect all postal workers
now and in the future!

But
how can our just demands
be met if the USPS is losing money? Actually, there are billions of
dollars a year available if the postal income created by our labor
was not robbed by unjust government raids on the postal budget. The
APWU leaders know this, but by accepting massive worker concessions,
they make us suffer and help let the budget-robbers off the hook.The other immediate cause of the postal budget crisis is
the overall economic crisis caused by Wall St. and big business. They
got trillions in bail-out money for their crimes. Postal workers have
already been made to pay dearly, with 170,000 lost jobs, massive
excessing, overwork, etc., but now management and the union leaders
want to gouge the workers again with a sellout contract. It’s time
for the workers to be bailed out, not the rich! Reject this contract
and fight to have the postal budget balanced in a just way!

Voting "no" and
defeating the
contract doesn’t settle matters, however. Mediation and arbitration
follow. Left to their own, management, arbitrators and the national
union leaders are not likely to improve our contract much. It will be
up to the rank and file to turn up the heat on them. Rank-and-file
activists should form their own networks. Circulate anti-concessions
leaflets, hold meetings, discuss what forms of struggle can be
organized. The more we organize and protest, the more pressure will
be put on management and the arbitrators to return with a better
contract. Given former APWU president Burrus’ opposition to the
contract, there may even be certain union officials who oppose it.
But given their history of betrayal, the rank and file must keep the
initiative in our own hands. Workers in Wisconsin rose up when under
attack and attracted great public support. Postal workers need to do
the same. And whatever the outcome of this struggle, the more the
rank-and-file stands up, the better suited we will be for future
battles.